Alcona County faces two millages in primary

July 25, 2014

ALCONA - Alcona County residents face two millage requests when they vote in the August primary election. One millage is for emergency medical teams, while the other is for funding the construction and site improvements of the Alcona County Road Commission facility that burned to the ground last fall.

The millage renewal for the Alcona County ambulance is looking to renew the expired previous voted increase in the tax limitation at the original 1 mill without further increases. The millage would be collected for four years, 2014-17, and would raise an estimated $747,342.71 in the first year.

EMS Director Kristin Hoffman said she hopes the voters pass the renewal due to its importance.

"It allows us to advance life support, helps us to maintain two stations 24/7 and provide the advanced life support, and we have gotten busy enough that I am trying to get a third crew during the day established," Hoffman said.

Jeff Brackett, 911 director, both lives in the county and supports the millage.

"We have been getting very, very busy and we do need a third crew. We end up having to contact the surrounding communities for assistance and response time is slower, which is not good," he said.

While the EMS has been able to support a temporary third crew, Brackett said it would be much more effective if the crew was full time especially during the summer months.

"I'm very appreciative of the support we have had in the past," Hoffman said.

The millage request by the road commission seeks a one year only funding of up to 0.5 mill of the taxable value of all taxable real and personal property in the county, which if fully raised an estimated $373,671 would be available for the construction and site improvements of the facility.

Managing Director Jesse Campbell said the one-time-only millage of 0.5 mill would allow a sounder structure.

"The structure we are building is a tad smaller than what we originally had but we want to make it a lot more user friendly and concentrate on utility costs, saving utility costs, better insulation, an easier to maintain building, and yet, still get the best needs of the road commission out of this," he said.

The goals of the millage include helping with networking, control in Alcona, materials, and maintaining the trucks and roads through a smaller scale structure than the original building.

"We know Alcona is already a strained community and we know we can get by with what we have but this would really assist us in making sure we can finalize the project and make it a lot more eco-friendly while saving in utility costs down the road. After the winter we just had this will make a big difference. It's hard to get by without at least a roof over these trucks and it will save the taxpayers money down the road," he said.